HARARE - Wicknell Chivayo has been fishing all winter, and he has not been using worms.
The businessman told the Denny J Show that he is ready to buy the dancehall star Winky D a brand-new BMW X5, as soon as tomorrow, if the musician gets in touch, iHarare reported. Chivayo questioned why an artist of Winky D’s standing still drives second-hand Japanese vehicles.
According to Pindula News, Chivayo said he held no grudge over Winky D’s alleged support for the opposition. The offer, he said, was about economics rather than politics. He claimed Winky D earns around US$3,000 to US$4,000 per show, not enough to walk into a dealership and buy a new luxury car, and that his gesture was meant to bridge the gap.
There was a catch. Chivayo said he would not approach Winky D first. He did not want to make a public offer, have it rejected and find himself in the position he was in with Eunor Guti of ZAOGA, Pindula News reported. Guti declined his offer of a Toyota Land Cruiser and US$250,000 in cash, later saying she did not believe there was the “mind and will of God” in accepting it.
Chivayo even suggested the words Winky D might use to call him: “Mukoma Bango howfar mangwana chaiye kamufana kari bho.”
The one that did not get away
The bait has worked before. In July, the chimurenga legend Thomas Mapfumo, 81, a long-time critic of ZANU-PF who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2000, accepted Chivayo’s offer of US$1 million for two concerts in Zimbabwe, Nehanda Radio reported.
Mapfumo made clear that the money was payment for performing, not a gift. Chivayo announced the deal on Facebook and X. “I am pleased to announce that I will wholeheartedly honour my commitment by paying a record-breaking US$1 million for these two shows at US$500,000 per show,” he wrote. “This will make the legendary Thomas Tafire nyika Mapfumo the highest-paid singer ever in the history of our beloved country.”
The decision divided opinion, Nehanda Radio noted, between those who saw it as overdue recognition for a national icon and those who believed it carried a political symbolism that could overshadow the principles that defined his career. Songs such as “Corruption”, “Disaster” and “Mamvemve” had cemented his reputation as one of Zimbabwe’s most outspoken musicians, the outlet noted.
The cartoons’ version
The cartoons accompanying this report have followed the season closely. The first shows a big man fishing from a tiny island, a full bucket at his side, as a fish in a rasta cap swims up to the hook declaring “Ndezvebasa chete”, strictly business. In the second, that fish is already in the bucket and the angler is eyeing the next, wondering aloud about “US$3 million for this one to perform at the Heroes gala”.
The US$3 million in the second cartoon is the artist’s figure; the real Mapfumo deal was US$1 million. Neither drawing names its fish, and neither shall we.
The third cartoon turns the courtship on its head: a kneeling man beside a sack of dollars pleads with a dreadlocked star in a white suit, “Please, I beg you to beg me!” That, more or less, is the deal Chivayo has now put on the table. He will give, but only if asked.
The question nobody can answer for him
For Winky D, whom Chivayo himself linked to the opposition, the choice is less about cars than about what accepting one would say. For Chivayo, the offer costs nothing until it is taken up, and generates headlines either way.
Mapfumo, for his part, chose to call his money a fee. Whether Winky D calls at all is, for now, the only question that matters. The line is in the water. The fish is still swimming.
